The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (14 page)

Two groups of people lead the way in separating the physical and
the metaphysical. First, there are the political philosophers influenced by Niccolo Machiavelli, whose book
The Prince
makes no appeal to morality or divine intervention, but is simply a study in how to control a state – as if God does not exist. Second, there are the physicians and surgeons who make a distinction between the physical and the metaphysical when considering certain diseases and ailments. William Bullein, who is both a clergyman and a physician, writes of a fictional medical man in 1564: ‘I am neither Catholic, Papist, Protestant or Anabaptist, I assure you.’ To this his plague-ridden patient replies: ‘What do you honour? The sun, the moon, or the stars, beast, stone or fowl, fish or tree?’ The physician answers: ‘No forsooth. I do none of them all. To be plain, I am
nulla fidian
and there are many of our sect.’
²

Bullein himself is not an atheist. For a start, if God does not exist, then the ability of physicians to effect cures is entirely dependent on their knowledge of the human body, and that is clearly limited. It is far better for a physician to maintain that he is God’s instrument and that the Almightly cures people through him. For reasons of human compassion, many physicians genuinely
want
to perform such medical miracles. In addition, developments in medical philosophy towards the end of the century suggest that medicines might be found in nature for every human ailment, thus revealing the hand of a benevolent Creator. Last but not least, there is the plain fact that, given the choice, most gravely ill patients would prefer a priest to come to their bedside than a physician, having more faith in the redemptive power of the Almighty than the curative abilities of physicians. The philosophical position of the
nulla fidians
is simply inadequate when it comes to helping sick and dying people: both physicians and patients need to believe in an interventionist God.
³

The word atheist also means ‘against God’ and in this sense it comes to be used in the late sixteenth century as a method of smearing a person’s reputation. If a person can be shown to be acting ‘against God’, then he is effectively excommunicated, having placed himself in enmity to all God-fearing people. Catholics argue that Protestants act in ways that are ‘against God’ and denounce them as atheists – even though the Protestant position is driven by a commitment to a simpler, more direct relationship with God. In 1565–6 the physician John Caius is accused of atheism by members of his college at Cambridge University. In 1592 Sir Walter Raleigh is accused of presiding
over a school of atheism in which ‘both Moses and our Saviour, and the Old and New Testaments, are jested at, and the scholars taught, among other things to spell “God” backwards’. In October 1596 the Church of Scotland minister David Black declares that Queen Elizabeth herself is an atheist and the religion professed in England nothing but a show.
⁴
Such accusations are all propaganda. Dr Caius is a humanist, but not an unbeliever; his accusers simply don’t like the autocratic way in which he rules the college. Raleigh does entertain some challenging philosophical points of view, but his own writings reveal him to be an Anglican conformist.
⁵
As for Elizabeth, although she dismisses theologians as ‘ropes of sand’, her own commitment to religious reform suggests that her personal faith is strong. She retains her father’s title of ‘Defender of the Faith’ and maintains that she rules by the grace of God.

There is one man who does profess himself to be an atheist, but he is hardly typical. This is the charismatic and unorthodox Christopher Marlowe, the playwright and poet. The earliest indications of Marlowe’s atheism are to be noted in 1587, when a fellow undergraduate at Cambridge, Mr Fineux, claims that Marlowe inducted him into atheism. However, Fineux clarifies this by adding that he occasionally goes out at midnight into a wood and prays heartily that the Devil might come. This clearly is not atheism as we know it, but being ‘against God’ – or devil-worship. Over the years Marlowe encourages people to associate him with atheism. In his play
The Jew of Malta
he has the ghost of Machiavelli declare, ‘I count religion but a childish toy / and hold there is no sin but ignorance.’ In 1592 Robert Greene accuses him of declaring, ‘There is no God’, and of embracing ‘Machiavellian policy’ and ‘diabolical atheism’. One Richard Cholmeley confesses that he was converted to atheism by Marlowe, who ‘is able to show more sound reasons for atheism than any divine in England is able to give to prove divinity’. Another informant claims that it is Marlowe’s custom ‘to jest at the divine scriptures, gibe at prayers and strive in argument to frustrate and confute what hath been spoken or written by prophets and such holy men’; he accuses Marlowe of joking that St John the Baptist was Christ’s homosexual lover.
⁶
Given that men can be hanged for homosexual acts in Elizabethan England (in line with the Vice of Buggery Act of 1563), and that heretics are burnt alive, a man who jokes that Christ is a sodomite is putting his life at risk.
Marlowe does not exactly help himself by declaring, ‘all they that love not tobacco and boys are fools’.
⁷
The government orders him to be arrested on account of his indiscretions, but before he can be brought in for questioning, he is stabbed to death in a house in Deptford in 1593, in an argument over a supper bill.

The Elizabethan Settlement of 1559

One of the popular misunderstandings of Elizabethan England is that, at the very moment when Mary I dies, on 17 November 1558, England suddenly ceases to be a Catholic kingdom, just as if a candle has been snuffed out. As you will see, it isn’t like that. Unlike Henry VIII’s reforms, which are suddenly imposed on the people by the king’s will and upheld by violence, Elizabeth’s Church is the result of a series of long debates and compromises in parliament, which are made palatable to the majority principally by their very Englishness. Indeed, the whole process of discussion is probably the reason why the Church of England proves so enduring. England remains a Protestant country not because of Henry VIII and his marital difficulties but because of the resolution of Elizabeth and her government to establish a new independent Church of England which is acceptable both to the majority of Englishmen and the queen herself.

At the start of her reign, everyone is full of curiosity, expectation and nervous apprehension concerning Elizabeth’s religion. Eighteen days after becoming queen, on 5 December 1558, she issues a summons for parliament to assemble on 23 January. The days tick by. The Venetian ambassador, Il Schifanoya, listens for any hint about the likely religious developments. On 17 December he writes home in alarm, saying, ‘at court, when the queen is present, a priest officiates who says certain prayers with the litanies in English after the fashion of King Edward. I pray God to grant that worse may not happen.’ Elizabeth’s appointment of a Protestant to be the first preacher at St Paul’s Cross in London causes the Catholics further concern. So does the appointment of seven new members to the privy council – all Protestants. She allows her late sister to be buried according to the Catholic rite in Westminster Abbey in mid-December, which gives the Catholics some hope; but then on 31 December Il Schifanoya hears terrible news. He writes:

Until now I have believed that the matters of religion would continue in the accustomed manner, her majesty having promised this with her own mouth many times; but now I have lost faith and I see that little by little they are returning to the bad use. On Christmas Day the bishop of Carlisle sang high Mass and her majesty sent to tell him that he was not to elevate the host; to which the good bishop replied that thus he had learnt the Mass and that she must pardon him as he could not do otherwise. So, the gospel being ended, her majesty rose and departed.
⁸

The queen’s premature departure from Mass leaves little doubt that the kingdom is set to leave the Church of Rome again. On 12 January 1559 Elizabeth takes a barge to the Tower and, on the 14th, in accordance with royal custom, she makes her way through the streets of London to Westminster Abbey, where she is to be crowned on the following day. On the day itself there are a number of pageants held on Cornhill, in Gracechurch Street, in Soper Lane and in Fleet Street. Over the next two days there are celebratory jousts at Whitehall. But beneath this veneer of pageantry, the country is on tenterhooks.

It is fair to say that many people just want things to continue as they are. When the news of Elizabeth’s accession reaches Much Wenlock in Shropshire, on 25 November, the feast of St Catherine, the sheriff informs the vicar who makes the pronouncement in a loud voice, exhorting all to pray for ‘Queen Elizabeth, by the grace of God, queen of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith’. Then, after a suitable anthem, he goes to the altar and says a Catholic Mass.
⁹
The congregation has no great desire to see all its time-honoured traditions shifted once more. There are also many of whom it may be said ‘they love a pot of ale better than a pulpit’, especially in rural areas.
¹⁰
But there is a real hunger for change among the more literate townsfolk. Ever since the Bible was first printed in English, in 1526, men and women have been studying it in detail. They have been instructing themselves in the teachings of Christ and interpreting the lessons of the Old Testament without the intervention of priests. Increasingly over the years such self-taught interpretations have clashed with the time-honoured interpretations of the Church, and there is a profound frustration at the Church’s refusal to change its views. People look at all the trappings of official religion and question how much religious practice is actually rooted in the Bible. Very little, they conclude. The Reformation of the Church under Henry VIII has encouraged them
to think more freely: if Henry could abolish the monasteries, why then not remove the whole paraphernalia of Catholic ritual? These things are just symbols, they argue – mere fripperies by comparison with the serious business of prayer. A few more fervent and courageous thinkers go further. Why should the monarch have the right to interfere in matters of religion? Why cannot the state and the Church be separate? Why should there be a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops? Why not have just simple priests serving their communities in a humble way, as the apostles did in the New Testament?

Elizabeth’s very existence is the result of Henry’s split with Rome. It was for her mother, Anne Boleyn, that her father divorced his first wife, then broke from Roman Catholicism and had himself proclaimed Supreme Head of the Church in 1534. Elizabeth is the living product of that religious break. Therefore she is bound to associate herself more with the reformers than the traditionalists. There is also the political element to consider. As she herself aptly puts it in a later speech to parliament: ‘one matter toucheth me so near as I may not overskip: religion,
the ground on which all other matters ought to take root
… ‘
¹¹
Religion is the basis of most people’s understanding of how the world works – from Creation through to the health of the individual – and as the Church intrudes into almost every walk of life, it is hugely important to incorporate its authority within that of the Crown. Elizabeth herself has personal preferences, such as that the clergy should remain unmarried and celibate, and that both the extravagant religious vestments and church music should be retained; she has no time for the Calvinist reformers who would abolish the ecclesiastical hierarchy. But these are minor issues compared to her principal objective: that, as queen of England, she should be the Supreme Head of the Church, like her father. It is the
combination
of spiritual and secular authority that delivers absolute authority, giving the monarch’s political rule divine approval.

Parliament meets on 25 January 1559. The debates are fervent from the start. On 4 February the queen recalls her ambassador to the papal court. Five days later a Bill is placed before parliament recognising the queen as Supreme Head of the Church. Then words really start to fly. But the first Supremacy Bill is turned down. So is the next. A third is introduced. Meanwhile the clergy – who have not been invited to attend this parliament – are discussing religious reform separately, in Convocation. They reaffirm their belief in transubstantiation, papal
supremacy and the key pillars of Roman Catholicism. On 31 March, Sir Nicholas Bacon accuses the Catholic proponents of contempt for the Crown and locks two of them up in the Tower. In this heated atmosphere the Church of England is hammered into shape. The final form of the Supremacy Act, passed on 29 April by the narrow majority of three votes, carries the compromise that the queen is not Supreme Head of the Church (because she is a woman), but its Supreme Governor. All the religious legislation of the previous reign is repealed. The Act of Uniformity (passed on the same day) re-establishes the Prayer Book of Edward VI as the authorised version. All office holders – clergymen, judges, JPs, mayors, royal officials and university graduates – are required to swear an oath acknowledging Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of the Church. Refusal to do so results in loss of office. Anyone writing, teaching or preaching that Elizabeth should be subject to the authority of a foreign power (including the pope) is to lose all his or her property and moveable possessions. Repeated offences will be judged high treason and incur the death penalty. Henceforth it is compulsory to attend Church of England services every Sunday and holy day, and those who fail – recusants, as they are known – are to be fined a shilling for each Sunday they fail to attend.